Mary Oliver, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose work focused on nature, passed away on January 17.

Many of Oliver’s poems focus on the connection between nature and the spiritual world, and her titles — such as “The Swan” and “The Rabbit” — reflect this. She is perhaps most well-known to have penned the question: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Her work appeared in publications such as The New Yorker and made many best-selling lists.

This species of fish was thought to have been extinct for 65 million years when one was caught in the western Indian Ocean.

Lesser known is the tale of a coelacanth sighting thousands of miles away in the mid-1990s, when one was spotted for sale at an Indonesian fish market by a marine biologist on his honeymoon.

The story of that discovery — and how it was told to the world — is filled with shocking twists and turns. At the center of it all was Mark Erdmann, now vice president of Asia-Pacific Marine Programs at Conservation International. Continue reading →

Editor’s note: News about conservation and the environment is made every day, but some of it can fly under the radar. In a recurring feature, Human Nature shares three stories from the past week that you should know about.

Several beaches in Australia are closed after thousands of people were stung by bluebottle jellyfish — a potentially troubling sign for ocean health.

The story: Since December 1, there have been 22,787 jellyfish stings recorded in Australia, Livia Albeck-Ripka reported for The New York Times last week. Typically, bluebottle jellyfish — whose stings are not normally fatal — stick to deeper waters, but strong winds and warmer waters have caused “a relentless influx” on beaches.

To find out what climate change has in store for 2019, we spoke with Conservation International’s climate change lead, Shyla Raghav, and learned what is going to make news about the climate in the coming year.

Question: What’s the biggest thing on the horizon for climate change in 2019? Continue reading →

Editor’s note: News about conservation and the environment is made every day, but some of it can fly under the radar. In a recurring feature, Human Nature shares three stories from the past week that you should know about.

Electric fences, trip wires and power lines are killing or severely injuring wildlife across Africa and Asia.

The story: Animals as small as birds and as large as elephants are being electrocuted, some on a mass scale, and the issue may be contributing to the endangerment or extinction of certain species, Rachel Nuwer reported for The New York Times last week. Trip wires — designed to deter lions and bush pigs — are the culprit most of the time, killing countless tortoises and pangolins.

A small islet in Tanzania had water shortages, scorching heat and a dwindling food supply due to deforestation, but things began to change once they started planting trees.

The story: Kokota, home to only 500 people, had such little fresh water that people would sail for hours to the neighboring island of Pemba to buy water, Sarah Gibbens reported for National Geographic last week. So a local non-profit employee began a partnership — Community Forests International — with a Canadian tree planter to begin reforesting the islands. Continue reading →

Deep in the rainforest of Honduras, an “ecological SWAT team” embarked on a mission — to quickly gather key biological and social data from the critically important area. Trond Larsen, director of Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment Program, and his team explored “the White City” — hidden for centuries within a remote valley — and discovered a trove.